Five Times Leslie and Ben Had Chicken Soup
by Jaded
Summary: Five times Ben and Leslie did or did not eat chicken soup, from "Flu Season" to Post-"L'il Sebastian."


It's 5:30PM and after work Ben finds himself in the produce section of a Kroger Supermarket, clutching in one hand a bag dried egg noodles and in the other, weighing a bag of carrots. He's already got a bunch of celery hearts tucked under his armpit and and a head of garlic in his pocket that he needs to try very hard to remember when he's checking out so that he doesn't accidentally steal it (he wonders if there's an auditor equivalent of impeachment and if the people of Pawnee would use that as an excuse to kick him out of town-he doesn't want to actively find this out).

He gazes back and forth between the bag of carrots in his hand and the two pounder next to the loose beets, trying to determine whether the one pound size is sufficient for the soup he's about to make for his work colleague.

Work colleague. It sounds weird to think of Leslie that way, but he's not ready to call it anything else yet, until it is something else.

If that something else ever happens, which he's not entirely sure it ever will.

It's just a hope, and he hasn't traded in hope for what seems like ages. He's a numbers guy, and hope isn't a measurable quantity, not at least since he was 18 and Partridge, Minnesota was his home. He's spent the last fifteen years measuring out his life in coffee spoons, but Pawnee's changed the way he sees the world, and suddenly it doesn't seem so absurd that he could measure out his life in coffee spoons, make the coffee, and then top it off with whipped cream.

"Are you finding everything you need?" the produce manager asks him when Ben almost knocks over a display of loose yellow onions. The manager says this calmly while holding out a hand and preventing an avalanche of root vegetables, like he's been watching Ben and expecting this.

"Err, yes. Well, no. Do you have any rotisserie chickens?"

The produce manager points to the Deli and Ben nods quickly before sidestepping into a display of avocados.

He stares at the produce manager whose eyes have bugged out of his head. "Um, I think I need a basket first," Ben says lamely, the garlic rolling out of his pocket.

"Front of the store," the produce manager says, shaking his head.

Over the store speakers Ben hears a clean-up call for the produce section that interrupts the tinny muzak version of "Don't Wanna Miss A Thing."

"Thanks," Ben says, rushing toward the registers before he can bruise all the tomatoes in Southern Indiana.

[#]

The Pawnee Suites aren't exactly the lap of luxury, but at least his room has a full kitchen. He adjusts the heat on the broth that's bubbling away and then goes to wipe his hand on towel so that he can call his mother. Again.

"I thought you had my chicken soup recipe memorized, Benji," she says from across the line all the way in Partridge, and he grimaces at his old nickname as he adjusts the position of his cell phone so that it rests more comfortably between his shoulder and his ear. He spreads out a yellow legal pad on the counter, pencil in hand, ready to take notes if he should need them.

"Well, yes," he says, "I thought I did, but I wanted to make sure I got it right. You know, after all these years I've probably made adjustments based on what I had, but I thought I should get your exact recipe down, Mom, since it is the best."

There's still that part of him that sounds like the Benji Wyatt that could win a small town mayoral election, and he doesn't know if he is angry or happy that it's still there inside of him. But it wins his mom over as it always does, and she begins to give in excruciating detail the order in which he must shred the chicken, add the carrots, and sprinkle in the fresh thyme right before he takes it off the stove.

"Who is this for again, Dear?" his mom asks absently before they hang up, and he simply mumbles something about coworkers and a bad flu that's gone through town, and he's sweating, partly from the heat of the stove and partly from nerves because he's suddenly got two gallons of chicken noodle soup and crush that's grown out of control.

It's midnight before he finishes, so he packs the soup into Tupperware containers, sits on the bed to check visiting hours at the hospital, and lays out a fresh plaid shirt for tomorrow. He thinks maybe he's lost his mind, but if he has he knows where to put the blame and the thanks: on the flu, and on one very sick, very amazing Leslie Knope.

[#]

He panics on his way to the hospital and pulls into the parking lot of J.J.'s Diner. What is he doing? The soup sits on the passenger's seat of his Saturn and he thinks again, _what the hell am I doing? What if Leslie doesn't even like chicken soup? What if she doesn't even like me?_

He's been pining away for her without really knowing he had been until almost yesterday, and now he's performing the equivalent of John Cusack holding up a boombox to Ione Skye in _Say Anything_. But Leslie's never given him a pen and he's never given her his heart and he really wishes the landlady at the Pawnee Suites would play _Star Wars_ just once. Even if it's _The Phantom Menace_. He's seen more romantic comedies in the last few months than he has in a lifetime. But at least, he thinks, he hasn't been forced to watch _Hope Floats_. Yet.

His car is idling and he knows he needs to get going soon. _C'mon, Wyatt_, he coaches himself.

For all the idealism that's been bubbling up inside of him lately, Ben's still a pragmatist at heart. He likes contingency plans. So the decision is easy: he runs into J.J.'s and orders waffles to go, extra whipped cream and a side of strawberries. He was just in here the day before, but it takes the order of extra whipped cream for Ben to receive a glimmer of recognition from J.J. who hands him the carry out bag with a wink.

"Tell her I say 'get well soon,'" J.J. says, and Ben's mouth goes dry as he nods the affirmative.

[#]

"Oh, hey!" she says when he walks into her hospital room, and her tone is enough welcome that he feels himself smiling with relief.

They've waffled (no pun intended) back and forth between being friends and enemies over the last months, and he's never sure how she'll react to him any given day, even though apparently he's firmly been in the "let's be friends, maybe even more than friends" camp for a while now. If she was feverish and distrusting of him yesterday, all of that has fallen away along with her high body temperature.

"Hey, there," he says, proffering his goods with a tentative grin. She rolls over, still so pretty even if she's wane and pale and wearing a hospital gown. "I've got you some waffles courtesy of J.J.'s Diner and some chicken soup courtesy of me." When her face lights up like she's seen the sun for the first time ever and it is beautiful to her, he thinks every hour and every anxiety spent making that soup was suddenly worth it.

But then she says, "I'll take the waffles," and he's left holding the soup. This was not going according to plan. At all.

"So how did the rest of the meeting go?" she asks, and he wonders if it will always be about work. But she's Leslie Knope and she loves her work. She is work and her work is her. And he likes her, so by the transitive property of whatever...

"Um. Well, you said you needed eighty total businesses to participate?" he begins.

"Yeah?" she asks, her expression nervous.

"We got a hundred and ten. And counting. So nice work, Leslie."

She smiles. Ben forgets about the soup.

"Nice work to you, too," she says, prying open the Styrofoam container.

He wants to stay but he's out of offerings of food and business to discuss, and she needs her rest, so . . ."Oh, uh," he starts. "Left the chicken soup there, just in case. It's an old family recipe. It's not a big deal, but..."

"Thank you for that," she says.

"Ok." He nods, smiles. But before he leaves, before he lingers for what might be considered a creepy and unnatural time, he finds that he can't help himself. He points to the soup container once more, just in case she might want it later.

[to be continued...]


End file.
